Ramadan falls this year from April 13 to May 12 and the prayer guide, 30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World, will lead Christians from 40 countries in prayer. The prayer guide is published in Denmark by Norea and the Danish European Mission.
The theme of this year's edition is cities where Muslims are either majority or minority. These cities are influential and inspiring centers of culture, art and economic development.
God loves Muslims as He loves all people (John 3:16) and does not want any of them to perish (1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9). Muslims are Christians' neighbors, and one way to love them is to carry them forward in prayer and be a blessing to them, their families and their communities.
The public debate about Christians in the Muslim world has often centered, with some drama, on the persecution of the church by Muslim extremists. On the one hand, it's good that the persecution of Christians is being spoken truthfully and clearly. On the other hand, some nuances have been lost in the debate. One nuance is that many Muslims are coming to faith in Jesus these days, partly because they are disgusted by the brutality of extremists.
Many Muslims are currently attracted to the message of God's love in Jesus Christ. Before the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, an estimated 500 Muslims had converted to the Christian faith. After the fall of the Shah, the church suffered severe persecution, but a 2020 poll conducted by the secular Dutch polling institute Gamaan indicates that 800,000 Iranian Muslims have now become Christians. In Algeria, estimates of the number of Muslims who have converted to the Christian faith range from 50,000 to 380,000. During the civil war in Yemen, the convert church has tripled, albeit from a low base. In Turkey, Syria and Iraq, there is also a quiet growth in the number of Christian converts.
God is doing something new in the Muslim world and Danish Christians can help make a difference through prayer. Prayer guides can be ordered free of charge from the Danish European Mission and Norea.
